Week 3 - Raytown Police Department Citizen's Academy

Week 3 was another busy week in the Citizen's Academy!

Lee's Summit Bomb Squad kicked off the class with a presentation followed by Crash Investigation, Narcotics Investigations, Juveniles and then ending with a discussion about Gangs.  I don't have a lot to say about each topic but here is my recap of class last night.

Captain Mark Liebig and Sergeant Stephen Poogs from Lee's Summit Police Department presented about their bomb squad.  There are only 7 bomb squads in the KC metro area (3 in MO, 4 in KS).  Bomb squads are trained and monitored by the FBI.  Raise of hands, who all thought it was the ATF that trained the bomb squad?  I did!  I learn something new every class!  The FBI determines who gets approval for training and recertification.  All training is done in Huntsville, Alabama and is certified by the FBI. Training includes 1 week of Hazmat training, 6 weeks of Hazardous Devices training and 1 week of training for recertification (every 3 years). 

Common calls local bomb squads are dispatched to include:  grenades, military ordinance (military has to be called in to detonate or remove when found), military small arms, chemical bombs, commercial explosives and fireworks.  Often times many of these items are found when an older military veteran passes away and family are cleaning out the house.  Fireworks are the #1 killer of bomb squad technicians in US.  Captain Liebig indicated it is because of complacency.  (Officers sometimes think fireworks aren't as dangerous as the other items they come across and aren't as careful handling as they should be.)  All incidents in which the bomb squad is dispatched out are reported to the FBI and ATF and are added to a database.  The database can be used as a resource for training.  

Captain Liebig also briefly discussed terrorism.  He stated that terrorism is always evolving.  It's not necessarily group driven, there are many lone wolves out there.  Recruitment for terroist groups is often now done via the internet. More than 30 terrorist plots in the US have been foiled since 9-11.  Captain Liebig mentioned a few of them.  For confidentiality reasons, I didn't take notes about those and won't post any info here.  Captain Liebig talked about the 7 stages of an Attack Cycle which include:  Selecting a target, surveillance (of target location), final selection of target, planning, final surveillance, deploy attack team, and attack.  

Sergeant Mike McDonough discussed Crash Investigations.  There are 4 officers assigned to investigate crashes (they are called crashes instead of accidents).  They have regular duties as well as crash investigations.  The 4 Elements of Crash Reduction/Life Saving include:  Traffic Enforcement, Engineering, EMS, Education.  Raytown averages about 550 crashes per year which has decreased from almost 730 crashes per year in 2000.  Some of the reasons proposed as to why the crashes have decreased is safety (cars are safer), education, traffic enforcement.

Detectives Gary Davis and Nathan Brand discussed Narcotics Investigations.  This unit has been active for about a year and a half.  In 2012 they made 2308 arrests for marijuana and seized nearly 300lbs.  Missouri is known as the meth capital of the US with Independence, MO ranking at or near the top every year in cities with the most meth arrests/activity. That's not exactly something to be proud of Independence!  With Raytown being so close to Independence, detectives keep busy tracking and arresting meth users.  Bath salts were discussed briefly.  They are illegal to be sold in Raytown.  Residents were encouraged to report any strange activity that could be drug related to the detectives.  They provided their contact info to participants attending class last night. 

Detective Brett Clear discussed Juveniles.  A juvenile is considered to be a child less than 17 years of age.  Every effort is made to contact a parent when a juvenile is apprehended or contacted by police as a witness to be interviewed.  The miranda rights should be given to a juvenile in terms they can understand.  Juveniles are not arrested, they are apprehended.  They can be handcuffed as needed.

Detective Clear talked briefly about juvenile court which is making a comeback in Raytown.  Juvenile court is a special court or department of a trial court which deals with under-age defendants charged with crimes or who are neglected or out of the control of their parents. The normal age of these defendants is under 17, but juvenile court does not have jurisdiction in cases in which minors are charged as adults. The goal of juvenile court is rehabilitation!

And last but not least, Officer Uriel Ojeda discussed gangs. I did not take notes to include here because this was one of the topics in the JCSO Citizen's Academy I was asked not to blog about so for confidentiality reasons I will not blog about gangs in this entry either other than to say that Raytown PD does not believe there are active gangs in Raytown but there may be gang members living in Raytown who participate in active gangs in the KC metro area.  Because Raytown is surrounded by KC, it is important to the PD to keep up on gang activity in the KC area for the safety of Raytown residents.

Next week we are back at the library to listen to more speakers regarding the following topics:  Domestic Violence, Hope House, Senior Programs, PIO's and Social Media, and Crisis Negotiations.